Chapter Text

Chapter One

Talking in Your Sleep

Peter's eyes shutter open mechanically, a bear-trap-snap to consciousness.

It’s a reflex more than anything—even as he feels his eyes move, the blooming ache of rigid muscles, the faint tremor of his limbs, the biting cold in his fingertips, his brain still lingers behind, fuzzy around the edges.

Slowly, like wiping the condensation from a foggy bathroom mirror, the world sharpens to murky clarity: he is not at home, in the cozy cramp of his childhood bed, tinny laughter from sitcom reruns burrowing through the walls. He isn’t slumped over his workbench in the lab, the thrum of rock music replaced by the gentle, mechanical hum of Tony’s arc reactor.

He is outside, rooted on an unfamiliar sidewalk, a jagged crack running underneath his feet like a split lip. A sharp pain cords around his muscles, from his heel to the nape of his neck.

His mouth tastes like dirt.

…What the fuck?

The thought runs through him like an electric current. He clenches and unclenches his fists, eyes sweeping over the surrounding scenery. A row of street lights line the dark road in front of him, golden light pooling around the edges, soft and bleary as an oil painting. A homeless man stands on the sidewalk across the street, swaying gently, back and forth like a windswept reed. The whole world is silent, eerily still.

The thought then occurs to Peter, very matter-of-factly, that he has no clue where the hell he is or how he got there, and that he should probably be frantically finding his way home instead of standing stupidly on the sidewalk, his only defense against the biting cold night being Hello Kitty pajamas.

God, he would totally die first in a horror movie.

Still half-asleep and slightly delirious, he unroots himself from the sidewalk and begins to follow the dark army of street lamps towards what he hopes is somewhere he’ll recognize. He follows the concrete grid of back alleyways and unfamiliar street signs, turning left and right randomly, almost feverishly. He swears he can feel a presence behind him, somewhere just behind his left shoulder, but every time he turns, he's met with nothing but the empty night.

The time following Uncle Ben's death, he remembers, brought with it a brief, month-long spell of night terrors and sleepwalking. A reaction, his therapist said, to the undoubtedly traumatic event he witnessed. All throughout those humid August nights, Peter would mechanically rise from his twin-size mattress, open the door to his room, and wander around the apartment aimlessly, eyes glassy, unseeing. Aunt May would wake — at the 'ass-crack of dawn,' as she eloquently put it — to the sounds of him bumping into coffee tables, the creak of old hardwood, the incoherent mumbles of one-sided conversation. One time, she awoke to him looming at the edge of her bed, like a scrawny, pubescent Michael Myers, and promptly screamed loud enough to wake the entire building. It was only then that he, begrudgingly, let her drag him to the pediatrician, soothing his nightly escapades with sleeping pills.

Though his sleepwalking had long since ceased, he still often woke to a thin film of sweat sheathing his body, his limbs mummified in the tangles of bedsheets, a strangled scream stifled behind his teeth. These, however, he didn't have to tell anyone about. He could lay in bed until his alarm sounded, endlessly reminding himself to breathe. He could sit at the kitchen table or his therapist's couch and reassure them that he was fine, really, that he didn't still flinch at the sight of pistols, or fist-fight exhaustion to patrol for just a little longer, in case there was something he missed, one more person he could save.

He had once sat on the crinkly, starched paper of an examination table, only half-listening to the doctor drone dully about sleep hygiene, locking away knives, extra locks on the front door. The pathways sleepwalkers follow, he said, were mostly force of habit — Peter would dutifully sit on kitchen chairs, open the fridge to examine bare shelves, lay on the lumpy couch and watch his glaze-eyed reflection in the black mirror of the television screen.

He's swung around to a lot of different places during patrol, but he's pretty sure he's never walked barefoot to a random alleyway in butt-fuck-nowhere of New York City. The hairs on the back of his neck rise, electrified.

After wandering so long his calves ache and his thighs grow sore, Peter finally reaches a crossroads he recognizes — a children's taekwondo academy on one corner, flanked by a blow-up doll frozen in a mighty kick, and a worn Italian restaurant on the other, this one guarded by a fat, smiling statue beckoning passerby with a platter of pizza. Peter lets out a breath that cracks into a whimper and begins to run, undeterred by the sharp pains poking at the pads of his feet. He sprints wildly past late-night wanderers and drunk stragglers and jet-lagged tourists that probably assume he's insane, a cocaine addict, or both, until he reaches the familiar, dirty red brick of his apartment building.

It's only when he's about to begin scaling the side of the wall that he notices that every single light in his apartment is on, a beacon signaling to the quiet night.

Fuck. Aunt May's gonna kill me.

Realizing it's likely not the best idea to demonstrate to the whole neighborhood that he's Spider-Man by crawling up the wall, he drags himself to the lobby, beginning the long trek up four flights of stairs.

"As if I haven't walked enough tonight," he grumbles. A rat squeaks in agreement somewhere in the vents.

As he approaches his apartment, muffled voices of panic from within grow louder. Two voices — one frantic, just beyond the door, one garbled, through the tinny speaker of a cellphone.

He winces, and pierces through the noise with a hesitant knock. The voices cease abruptly, replaced by stomping footsteps across the hardwood.

The door slams open, hitting the drywall with a crack. Aunt May stands on the threshold, poised like a wild animal, ready to strike. She huffs out a breath, deflated. "Jesus — yeah, no, Tony, he just came home. Christ. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's fine. Bye." The dial tone beeps before the man on the other side can even get a word in.

"Where the hell have you been?"

May purses her lips, gingerly pressing an alcohol-soaked cotton pad to the sole of Peter's foot. The smell makes him wince. "You know," she says, "I don't mind a little teenage rebellion. Believe me, I did it all when I was your age. Drinking, sneaking out, whatever." Peter opens his mouth to protest, but she silences him, aiming a finger at his nose, keen as a sniper.

"I do not, however, condone walking home alone, in the middle of winter, barefoot, without letting me know where you are, or who you're with, or whether or not you've been kidnapped and murdered in an alleyway."

I wasn't, he wants to say, I don't know what's happening.

But in the low, butter-yellow light, behind the lenses of her skewed glasses, Peter sees the dark smudges of missed sleep hanging below her eyes. "Lord knows I worry enough about you," she says softly, barely above a whisper. Something heavy, calcified, sits below Peter's navel. The words extinguish in his throat.

At his silence, Aunt May sighs, cupping his cheek with her hand. "Listen, I'm not mad, sweetheart. Just worried." She stands up to pack away the first aid kit, pressing a kiss into his curls. "You should get some sleep. It's still a school night, even for party animals like you."

At the threshold of her bedroom, she turns once more. "Next time, promise me you'll just call an Uber. Or call Tony, and hitch a ride with Iron Man, or something," she says, a fond smile dancing on her lips.

Peter sits motionless on the kitchen chair, staring at a spot somewhere next to the television. His feet are swaddled in bandages, like a newborn. He nods and nods and nods.

The sun peeks over the horizon, spilling golden pools of light onto the floorboards. Peter's alarm blares incessantly through the drywall.

Aunt May flourishes out of her room, hair tousled, hurriedly tugging sneakers onto her feet. She woke up late, she says, and apologizes for not being able to feed him before sending him off to school. Peter stares at the wall, where chips of paint are flaking off, etching what almost looks like a wide-mouthed, sharp-toothed grin.

Aunt May pauses for a minute, and asks if he's okay.

Peter nods and nods and nods. Even as she closes the door and the deadbolt shuts with a click, he is still nodding.

"Hey, did we, like… hang out last night? Or something?"

Ned stops chewing his sandwich. "Dude, are you high?"

Peter drops his head onto the lunch table with a sigh, right into an unidentifiable, sticky substance congealed onto the laminate. He immediately flings his head back up, nose scrunched in disgust. "No, man, I just, like — I can't remember what I did last night. At all. I woke up, and I was just…in the middle of the street."

Ned chews thoughtfully, head tilted, like Peter is a particularly difficult problem to solve. MJ narrows her eyes, her book tented face-down on the table. "Did you… get high last night?" Ned says slowly.

"Nobody was high, Ned."

"Maybe someone drugged you on patrol," MJ interjects.

"I woke up in my pajamas. Not my suit."

She frowns at this, brow furrowed. There's a small dimple etched below the corner of her mouth, which Peter stares at for way too long.

Ned's back straightens, excited, eyes glimmering under the fluorescent lights. "Maybe it's a Ratatouille situation, you know? Like, a super-villain implanted an alien baby into your brain, and now it's controlling you without you even knowing, and you're gonna give birth to a bunch more alien babies and take over the world."

Peter turns to MJ desperately. She smirks, picking her book back up. "I wouldn't rule it out."

Peter sighs. Something tickles on the nape of his neck. He swats at it, but his hand comes back empty.

Peter is swept by the horde of escaping high schoolers all the way to the street, where a sleek, black sedan is parked neatly by the curb, the driver concealed behind tinted glass. Peter slides into the back seat and collapses on the leather with a huff.

"Buckle up," Happy says from the front seat, and then immediately drives off before Peter can even reach for the seatbelt. Peter glares at his forehead through the rear-view mirror, which Happy meets with a faint smirk. "I heard about your, uh, little escape attempt last night."

Peter throws his head back dramatically, like a consumptive damsel in a Victorian painting. "How did you hear about that?"

Happy clears his throat, spine straightening. He suddenly seems very interested in the license plate of the car in front of them. "Well, you know… your aunt and I, we… we talk."

Peter narrows his eyes. A bead of sweat rolls from the nape of Happy's neck into his collar. "You talk," he repeats, slowly.

"Yeah, you know. We're friends. We talk." Happy licks his lips like a guilty dog. "We go out, sometimes."

"Oh my god, I do not need to know about your dating life."

"Dat — who said anything about dating?" Happy splutters. "We're just, you know, getting to know each other —"

"Please stop talking," Peter groans, stifled by his hands dragging over his face.

Happy obliges, mouth snapping shut. There's a beat of silence.

"You know, you could have just said Mr. Stark told you—"

"Wow, wouldn't you know it, kid, we're here already."

"…This might seem hypocritical, coming from me," Mr. Stark says, crossing his arms over his chest, "But having safe and responsible drinking habits —"

Peter's head lolls back on his neck like he’s been decapitated, the stern expression the man wears evident even upside down. "I know," he says in a childish whine. "Don't drink and drive, don't leave your cup unattended, yada-yada-yada."

Mr. Stark puts his hands up placatingly. "Yeah, yeah, it's so annoying that we don't want you to die. Horrific, I know," Mr. Stark says, turning back to his workbench. "What were you doing, anyway? No offense, but I didn't peg you for a stay-out-all-night-partying kind of guy."

Peter swallows, hunching himself over the desk, as though he's trying to protect something vulnerable, a soft underbelly. "Uh, you know, just a house party. With people from school."

"People. What kind of people? Your friend, uh—" he snaps his fingers — "Ted?"

"Ned."

"Ah, whatever." Mr. Stark waves his hand dismissively, then leans on the table heavily, the heat from his forearms leaving imprints on the metal. "It just—" he scratches the scruff on his chin, "—it just doesn't seem like you to do something like that. You doing okay, otherwise?"

Peter's throat feels smothered, full of smoke. He could tell the truth. He could say that he doesn't remember a thing from that night except waking up in a concrete desert, shivering and sore and alone. He could tell the truth, that he only went along with his aunt's assumption because she already spends all night just hoping he doesn't come home in a casket, and she doesn't need more stress in her life. He could tell the truth — that he's scared.

JARVIS' smooth voice emanates from the walls along with the gentle chime of an alarm, like a TV commercial's jingle. "It is now 8 P.M., time for Peter to go home. Mr. Hogan is waiting at the entrance."

"Saved by the bell," Mr. Stark says as he stands up, stretching like a cat that has awoken from a long nap. A chorus of pops echo from his back. "Really, though, kid, if there's anything you need help with — homework help, an AA meeting—" he winks, "—whatever, I'm your guy."

Peter stares down at his notebook. The page is covered with a gray sheen of graphite, scribbles that loop and whirl over the paper until almost no white spots remain. He can't quite remember doing that, though he also can't quite remember what he actually worked on in the hours he's sat here. His mind feels hazy, thoughts elusive.

"I… do need a new backpack," he says.

"Really? No iPad? No Ferrari? You're a cheap date."

Peter smiles sheepishly. "Yeah, well, I've already gone through six of them this year. Aunt May would kill me if I ask for another."

Mr. Stark blinks, once, firmly. "Wow. Forget the suit, you need a GPS on your backpack."

Peter juts his bottom lip out childishly. "I didn't even lose it this time," he says. "There's just… some weird black sludge stuck on it."